Antibiotic treatment for infected bites

There is consensus that antibiotics might possibly be beneficial for infected mammalian bites, but there is no evidence from controlled trials.

A topic in Clinical Evidence summarizes the results of one RCT (n=61) comparing penicillin with or without dicloxacillin versus amoxicillin/amocicillin/clavulanic acid. Treatments were given for 5 days in people bitten less than 8 hours previously or in those without clinical infection (n=34) and for 10 days in those bitten more than 8 hours previously or with clinical infection (n=27). There was no significant difference in failure rate (1/31 (3%) vs 3/30 (10%), RR 0.32, 95% CI 0.03 to 2.54). There were no RCTs comparing antibiotics with placebo. However, there is consensus that they are likely to be beneficial.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by sparse data.

The following decision support rules contain links to this evidence summary:

• Antibiotic prophylaxis for bites

Ədəbiyyat

1. Medeiros IM, Saconato H. What are the effects of treatments for infected mammalian bites. Bites (mammalian). Clinical Evidence 2005;13:24852486.